Raindrops Sunshowers
by X-valmont-X
Summary: Only When You're Close to Losing Something Do You Realize How Much It Really Means to You.


This story is for Zander, who was number 100! And to whom i am also eternally thankful!

I don't own loveless, or raindrops+sunshowers by the smashing pumpkins, and i make no money from this.

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**Raindrops + Sunshowers**

**Rain falls on everyone  
The same old rain  
And I'm just trying to  
Walk with you  
Between the raindrops  
I send my echo out  
To get your love without  
Obscured reflections of  
My love  
Rain falls on everyone  
The same old rain  
And I'm just trying to  
Walk with you  
Between the raindrops  
I'll save a prayer for you  
So lost and longing to  
Be dragged thru dirty streets  
Wrapped up in clean white sheets  
And if you think they'll watch you now  
You should know they won't  
**

It was raining, the kind of rains that soaked you within seconds of starting, that made you feel dirty and in need of a bath. I lost sight of my feet in puddles as I trudged through it. I would not make it home, I was bleeding too much, too many parts of me had been broken this time. I bled from my nose, from all of my limbs and from scratches that were littered over various parts of my body. I suspected that there would be a black eye or two to be had in the morning.

I hadn't phoned Ritsuka. I had stood and fought by myself and the other fighters were becoming more and more powerful. Soon, I would be powerless against them. But I didn't want him harmed. I wanted no other person on earth to have a claim upon him, apart from me. And so, I left him in the moderate safety of his room, whist I went and got myself near torn apart.

I loved him dearly, too much, I often thought. Yet I was getting weary. I was after all human and there was a limit as to how much my body could take, it healed itself over and over, only to be broken and attacked a few days later. I knew, that someday soon, either it, or me, was going to give up for good.

I slunk onto a bench. I was chilled to the bone. My clothes were ripped, my hair was matted with blood, I looked worn and ragged, and I could move no further. Hoping it was still there, I reached into my pocket for my phone. I speed-dialled the first number.

The dialling tone hummed in my ear, and after a few rings, a crackled voice answered.

"Soubi? Do you know what time it is?"

"Kio" it was all I could force from within myself.

"Soubi! What's wrong?" for all the things that Kio was, all of the excitement burning within him, he knew when to be serious, and when something was wrong.

"Kio. Come and get me. Please" I had began to cry, every part of me ached with the temptation to give in, to close my eyes and not wake up again.

"where are you?" I could tell by the tone of his voice that he had sat up in a hurry, and was panicking, already getting dressed and frantically trying to find his keys.

"I'm nearby, I'm by the phone box just off the top of the road. Near the shop."

"ok. Ok. I'm leaving now. don't move!" he hung up without a goodbye, and I let the phone slip from my hand. it fell to the floor with an almost definitely fatal smack on the floor. My eyes closed, not caring about it, just wanting to make it though the time I had to wait before Kio was there.

My breathing became shallow, my lungs suddenly feeling full of the water that was raining down upon me. I was slipping away, thoughts of the people in my life flickered like old movie stills through my mind. There was nothing I could do to stop them, pictures of Ritual, Ritual smiling, laughing, telling me off, Ritual kissing me. I would miss him terribly. I truly loved him more than anything. Still. My death was preferable to him being harmed.

As my mind was going to run blank, my name was screamed in my ear.

"Soubi!" his voice was high pitched, deafening.

His hands were on me, shaking me out of my void, waking me back into the world and dragging me back to consciousness with a thump.

"Kio?" I groaned, forcing the air out of my lungs to form the syllables.

"oh god. Soubi! You need to go to a doctor! Please! Let me take you to a hospital!" he was squeaking, his hands shaking as they pulled at my tattered clothes trying to get them to cover me better.

"no. Just take me home." I shook my head. hospitals asked questions, I had learnt this from experience.

He hauled me up, for such a small man, he was quite strong.

"you need a doctor" he was already backing down, this was Kio, forever the doormat, no matter how he liked to pretend otherwise. I held onto his slight frame with all the strength I had in me.

"no. Just take me home. I need to go home." I growled low in my throat, closely followed by a rasping cough.

"did you make me wait there for you deliberately?!" he sounded a bit like his usual self, a bit too high pitched, a bit tightly strung.

"no." I tried to punctuate this gesture with a shake of my head, but all I managed was a very ungraceful slouch.

"I'm getting worried about you Sou-chan, this is getting a little too weird, kinky: I can put up with, but have you seen yourself?!" he took a breath.

"you're a state, soon you'll be a cripple! You won't be able to paint! some things just aren't worth it! I don't understand it! I could do these things to you and you wouldn't even bleed! I'd learn it for you! Just to make sure you're safe! But you choose a child! Do you know how wrong that is? On so many levels! I just-just can't!-"

"Kio-" I groaned as loud as I could to stop him, if he didn't take a breath soon he'd surely asphyxiate.

"what?"

"shut up. Please."

"oh. Ok. I just think you should take better care of yourself. You'll do yourself some real damage-" he heaved me back into the position I had slipped from. "like tonight. You've really done yourself in this time. and one day I'll meet a beautiful woman and run off with her, and I won't be there to scrape you off the pavement like I do, what will you do then? Die. that's what. And what good will that do anyone? I just don't understand you at all. And I don't understand why I keep helping you. I must be mad. Off my rocker, completely away-with-it" he made the syllables distinctive, just to get his point across, and then he continued:

"god. For such a skinny guy you're so heavy! You're going to give me arthritis, I'll sue you-"

"Kio"

"what?" a terrible sense of de-ja-vu overcame me.

" shut up" I added no please.

"oh. Ok. But-"

"no. No but Kio. Just shut up" the pain was spreading steadily through me, my head pulsing.

He groaned, put well into his place.

We crossed the quiet road that was commonplace in this area of town, it shone in the unnatural fluorescent glow of the street lamps, it reflected parked cars and bushes in whorls in the puddles formed in the neglected pot-holes that littered the pathways. I would paint this when I was better, I would call it back up like a dream I needed to remember.

All the lights were on in my house, it seemed to be spilling out of the window into the street, it seemed an impossible target. With every step my feet got heavier, lifted a little less of the ground, and I could feel my body willing itself to crawl. Such a state was so undignified that I would not allow myself to stoop so low, I would carry on, I would be carried by Kio if I had to.

I turned my weary eyes away from my slow approaching home, and instead looked at my friend. My lashes hung heavy with blood from my head, and so I could only make him out vaguely, his face was silhouetted by the street lights, his delicate form was beautiful, I had never noticed before. I had always thought him plain, normal, and not someone who could enchant people, not like Ritual, his features shone bright, perfectly formed and placed, even in his manner he is different, one of a kind, and he takes my breath away.

But in the shadow of this humble public lamp, I realized Kio's beauty, I recognised that his plainness was something all in itself, his attractiveness was of a complete contrast to Ritsuka's, it calmed me, and for a moment, every wound I had sustained stopped aching.

"what?" I hadn't noticed that he had turned to look at me. He had seen me staring, my eyes wide, and my cheeks no doubt flushing, even though he could probably not see it.

"nothing" I grumbled. I looked away, eyes down to the floor.

"no, Sou-chan, it's not nothing. You were staring at me, you never just 'stare'"

"it's _nothing_" I looked back up at him, and there transpired a moment between us that changed everything about our friendship. There were no words or actions, but we both recognised something within each other that hadn't been there before, or maybe it had, and I had just been ignorant to it.

"Soubi" he whimpered, "steps"

I looked up, we were finally home, all I had to do was clamber as best I could to my front door.

"go ahead of me, open the doors all the way to my bed." He didn't argue, he was shaken, whether it was by the state of me, or whatever had just happened I don't know, but I knew his hands were becoming hot on me, burning through my clothes to my throbbing flesh. He steadied me on the banister, and clambered up the stairs. I gripped tightly to the wet metal and heaved myself onto the first step, the pain was unbearable, supporting my own weight was a lot more difficult without him, yet I carried on, one slippery step at a time, and with every increase I felt my head whirl. I shook as I held onto the doorframe, his shoes were sprawled on the welcome mat, he had ran through the house, and he was now lingering at the end of the corridor, unsure of whether or not I would welcome help. I looked down to my feet, there was no question of me removing them myself, and so I met his gaze, and without saying a word, he sighed dramatically and came to help me with them.

"you really need to sort yourself out, you know. I'm getting sick of cleaning you up every week, I swear one day I'll find you dismembered. This is the last time I ever do this for you" his last sentence was said in a huff as he yanked my right shoe off.

"you always say that" for the first time, I smiled.

"but I mean it this time" the other foot was freed.

"you always say that too"

He looked up at me, and whacked my hip. I jolted with pain, crying out loud and shooting a furious scowl at him. I contemplated kicking him in the face, but I didn't have the energy, instead I just looked wounded, and appealed to his guilty conscience.

"oh. Just come _on_ will you please. You're going to collapse or something." He once again slung my arm over his shoulder and half dragged me to my bed.

The lights were harsh, I squinted, and the blood that had hung so near to my eye finally dripped into it. It stung, blinding me momentarily, but it was just an addition to my pain, nothing that was going to kill me, I hoped, still I couldn't open it.

He laid me down ungracefully upon my bed, my sheets were a starched white, and I must have looked like a shabby beggar against them, my blood would stain them, like that of Christ after the crucifixion, I wished I could wrap myself in them like he had been, a blinding and pure cocoon, something to protect me whilst I healed.

"Soubi!" Kio whined, slapping me lightly on the cheek, "stay awake! I'm going to get some water, flannels and painkillers" he rushed from the room, leaving my one open eye gazing at the ceiling.

It was always the same, once we were in this room, things changed between us, he was no longer the fun-loving Kio, who like to tease me about being some kind of child-molester, or who was spewing innuendo like it was his native tongue, he became solemn as he undressed me, cleaned my wounds, and sent me to sleep, set me up to heal myself.

He came back, the bowl of water was larger than usual and there were twice as many flannels, I really was as bad as I felt. He said nothing as he peeled my soaked socks from my feet, they were dropped on the floor with no thought, they could wait. He held up a pair of scissors and looked at me questioningly, I nodded, and he began to cut away my layered shirts, they were all torn to bits any way, there was no point in trying to salvage them. He gently pulled the remnants away from under me, and my torso was on display. He gasped, there was no sign of my alabaster skin, it was all a violent red, welts, scratches, and a few gashes that were still passing a small amount of blood littered my body.

I coughed, and he came back to himself with a start. My belt buckle was undone carefully with a healer's hands, the buttons followed, the fly next, and they were removed. I was naked, and yet there were no inappropriate comments, his eyes didn't even flit over the place I knew he would usually sell his soul to see. He respected me, and my condition, as he laid a white towel over my middle, he would clean there last, for now he had to see to my face.

He seemed to produce some cotton wool pleat from nowhere, he dampened it, and then shaped it to gentle point. He began with my eyes, allowing me to close them for a few seconds, whilst he wiped away the dirt and blood. His touches were firm but delicate, he had done this enough times to know how much pressure to apply, he knew how I reacted to pain, which was generally not at all, but one the rare occasion that I did, he knew not to say anything. The pleat was a reddish brown, it was swiftly binned, and replaced with another for the other side of my face. I felt immediately cleaner, yet my pain had not eased.

My breath came out of me in disorganised sighs. It hurt, I had broken a few ribs. His gentle hands next travelled to my neck, checking for any abrasions, he found a few minor scratches, and cleaned them tenderly.

He leant down, placing a dry towel into the bucket of water, and then wrung it thoroughly. It was warm as he pressed it carefully to my chest, and began to clean the blood away. Slowly my usual pallor returned, still a dark pink from residues, or maybe from the beatings, maybe this redness would become black, blue and green. Every bit of my human instinct told me to wince, to show my pain, yet I had been taught not to, to deny myself the indulgence of weakness. I knew I was safe in front of Kio, he would not ridicule me for giving in, I was still not comfortable with it though.

The towel brushed my side and it tickled, I jolted, our eyes met, and he looked at me apologetically. It was at this moment that I realised my eye was watering, it still stung violently. He wiped the tears away gently with the corner of the towel, and then he went back to his work, diligently, the only other time I ever saw him like this was when he was painting, he was a different person then too. He slowly revealed laceration after laceration, they had really done me over this time.

I had never been able to recognise love before, but I saw it in him now, his devotion to me was a little unsettling, I couldn't understand it, unless it was for someone as special as Ritual, and I was not as special as him. I saw myself as entirely unremarkable. I found myself staring at him again, trying to work out the details in his face, his thinly rimmed glasses, his high cheekbones looking slightly gaunt, maybe from worry or maybe from lack of sleep, Kio was a notorious procrastinator, not as bad as me, but bad enough, and there was a deadline fast approaching.

He had a highly defined jaw line, it cast shadows along his neck and his collarbones, I wanted to reach out and touch him, in the dark places that I could not see, human beings are tactile, they need touch to understand things, and I need to touch things to be able to draw them, and I wanted to draw Kio.

I noticed my heart was quickening, I had not thought him of in this way before, in hindsight, if I had been in the right mind I would have thought that I had been knocked over the head, I was simply delirious, and that was why he suddenly seemed beautiful to me, although, I know now, and I knew then that I would have been lying.

Maybe it was because I had been dangerously close to death. It has always been my firm belief that you only realize the obvious when the obvious is about to be taken from you. And it came to me then, that maybe I should dedicate myself a bit to him. he deserved it. I was in no position to do anything about it now though.

His leaning down to place the flannel in the bowl of water interrupted my reverie, he left it in there, and picked up another. looking down as far as I could, I became worried about blood loss, what I had believed to be scratches were in fact shallow stab wounds. He bit his lip lightly, obviously realizing the same thing that I had, this was the worst by far, and it could only get more severe from here, my battles may one day soon kill me.

Our eyes met again, there was a sadness in them that I saw every time I mentioned Ritsuka's name, it was the sadness of someone losing something precious. He took up my hand, he always took special care with my hands, he saw them as the gateway to my future, and I suppose he was right. Normally when he did this, I let myself go limp, I let him just get on with it, tonight was no different but as he moved further up my arm to my wrist, I grasped him tight. He gasped, obviously frightened by my sudden need for contact, he was afraid of being harmed. It hurt me to think he would suspect me capable of hurting him, but I smiled, loosening my grip, and enfolding his hand in mine. He looked down upon them like they were a car-crash, his face reddened and eyes widened. He then looked up at me, a weak smile spread across his face, he didn't understand fully what was happening, to be truthful, neither did I.

I tried to smile back, but my lip was split, and began to bleed again, and in a moment of exhaustion, I let the pain show. He leant in close, dropping my hand, and wiped the blood before it could run down my chin and held it there, my heart rattled in my chest, although I was aching all over, and although if I moved, I would probably pass out, I wanted to touch him, to map out his flesh with my hands. I wanted to see his tattoo again, to kiss my way along it and trace its intricate swirls with my fingers. I wanted to close my eyes to imagine it, but I was too absorbed in trying to make out his, they were hidden behind his glasses that shone slightly in the vicious manmade light of my room.

He went back to cleaning my arms, breaking our connection and leaving me feeling utterly alone. I had a particularly bad wound on my left arm, it was deeper than the rest, and still bleeding profusely. He sighed loudly, wishing I would go to a doctor no doubt, he picked up a new piece of pleat, and began to clean it, producing from nowhere a bottle of iodine, it stung, and had to close my eyes to hide the tears that formed there. He wrapped it securely in a tight piece of gauze and continued.

By the time he had finished he had run out of towels, flannels, and gauze. His hands were tired and red with my blood he had rinsed them in the bowl but they looked no different, he left without saying a word and went to the bathroom, carrying the bowl and stained articles with him. I felt cleaner, and cold.

I heard the tap running, the soap being used and replaced in its dish and then his footsteps through to the kitchen. My fridge door opened with its familiar squeak, and water was being poured, into a tall glass I suspected.

He returned, carrying a glass of ice water, his shirt was stained and his face tired. Instead of handing it to me like I suspected, he spoke for the first time.

"can you sit up?" his voice was shaky, there was no hint of the confidence that was usually there, just a fragility that I had never heard before.

He set the glass beside me on the table, and, slipping his hand under my arms he half lifted me as I struggled to sit up. I winced, the pain was getting harder and harder to hide.

"thank you...Kio" my voice was deeper than normal, croaking, my words were not well formed through fear of my lip cracking again.

"hmm" he was pretending to be angry, pretending to busy himself with the blister packet that contained the extra strength painkillers.

He handed me three, and then the glass. It was heavier than it should have been, and I strained, he moved to support me, his hand covering mine. On any other night this would not have meant anything, but it did then, his flesh burned mine, I could feel his pulse through his fingers, and as I drank, I knew there was a thirst within me that would not be quenched by water.

I took the pills, finding them hard to swallow, as if my throat was swollen. I had vague memories of being throttled by rusting chains, I could not however, figure out if this was true or not.

He took the empty glass away, putting it beside me, and pulling up a throw from under my bed, he placed it gently over me, covering my body that ached with every millimetre of skin.

"sleep" he sounded like he was going to cry.

"Kio?" I was exhausted with just this one word. He looked at me without saying anything. "sleep next to me...please?"

Sighing deeply he nodded, this was nothing new, yet it felt it tonight, for the first time in many years, I actually felt nervous. He went to put the glass in the sink, I took the chance to show my pain, to ease myself into as comfortable a position as I could get. I closed my eyes tightly regretting the action immediately. My hair fanned out on the pillow beneath me, I was laid on my side, my arms arranged carefully so I would no longer ache so badly. He returned, removing his socks as he went, they were as wet as mine, yet he had not thought of himself before me. He removed his shirt, that too was dripping wet. His skin had a sheen in the light, it was damp. He turned to throw it near to the wall, and there was his tattoo, it looked like it had crept over his back and planted itself there without him realizing. It took my breath away. I imagined the needle slipping quickly beneath his skin, and leaving its mark there forever, I imagined the pain.

I had always had a strange relationship with pain, of course to any psychologist this would stem from my experiences with Ritsu, but I knew better, it had fascinated me from a very young age, pain, and I had more than once experimented with my body and pain, even before the hurt came that shook me to the bone, and that formed me into what I am.

He turned to me, removing his glasses and placing them on the bed side cabinet, the one that only he had used. He seemed to slither into bed, lying beside me and there were the eyes that I had been trying to pick out from behind the lenses, they were beautiful, tinged with violet and wracked with worry. Although it hurt me beyond belief I reached over and ran my fingers through his hair, tucking it behind his ear.

Such blatant affection was not typical of me, and although he smiled and leant into my touch, he looked worried.

"thank you" I whispered. It was the first time I had ever said that word to him.

I closed my eyes, ready to sleep, to heal, the door was locked, and as he turned the lights out, I slipped into a safe and warm slumber, calmed by his breath ghosting across my bare skin.

**Rain falls on everyone  
The same old rain  
And I'm just trying to  
Walk with you  
Between the raindrops  
And I'm just trying to  
Walk with you between the raindrops  
I send my echo out  
To get your love without  
Obscured reflections of  
Of my secret love  
Force down the words about  
To get your love without  
Obscured reflections of my love  
And I'm just trying to talk to you between the raindrops**


End file.
